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Most of the Arab dictatorships are in a very poor
economic situation, due to various degrees of international
economic sanctions, local corruption and
tyrannical reign which is believed to suffocate personal
enterprise.The human rights conditions in
Arab dictatorships are often poor.Arbitrary arrests and executions, lack of due process, suppression of
civic freedoms, especially of speech and political activism, remain
common there.
Some Arab dictatorships have been accused of
supporting terrorism
by supplying money, people and weapons to terrorist
organizations.Syria, for example, is
accused by the United States of sponsoring Hezbollah and the Islamic
Jihad.Libya has paid compensation to
the United
States and the United Kingdom for the terrorist bombing of a
Pan
Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.In return,
international sanctions were lifted.Some
Arab dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, are pro-western, advocating a foreign
policy designed to conciliate, as much as possible, Western and
especially American governments.Other
dictatorships have often been accused of encouraging anti-Americanism as
a means to divert popular discontent away from themselves.
After
the Gulf War of
1990-91 and the liberation of Kuwait, calls for more democracy in Gulf Arab states
intensified.The Kuwaiti parliament was
resurrected as an elected body, and has been more assertive, though
still under the suzerainty of the hereditary Emir.It
is notable that the right of women to vote and stand for election
has been proposed by the Emir but blocked by
parliament.Saudi Arabia held
limited-scale local and municipal elections in February
2005 to a Municipal Council
where half the seats are appointed.Women
are barred from voting or standing for election, although the
government has promised to allow their participation in election
scheduled for 2009.The dictatorship of
Saddam
Hussein ended with the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, and the
first free multiparty elections took place on January 302005, though foreign troops remain in the
country.In February of 2005, Egyptian
president Hosni
Mubarak decided to allow multi-party presidential elections,
instead of the old system where the largely rubber-stamp Parliament nominates the
president who is then confirmed, as the lone candidate, in a
referendum.It is
unclear how free these elections, scheduled for September
2005, will be.
Critical
views ==
Some contend that the term Arab dictatorship makes no
sense because Arabs are a diverse cultural group.
They view the issue of dictatorship in the Arab world
as a politically motivated concept, used for political goals by
Westen powers.This account, however,
contradicts the views of many Arabs themselves who see other Arabs
as brothers.See Panarabism The myth
of Pan-Arabism is also belied by the fractious nature of many Arab
states, which have a history of in-fighting and
rivalry.Furthermore, the Middle East is
culturally diverse, including different religious sects and other
ethnic groups.The question of if and why
Arab regimes are mostly or all dictatorships is still a topic of
debate and controversy.
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